Assembling Voices - Incite at Columbia University

Get Funded

Assembling Voices

  • Year Established 2020
  • Fellowships Awarded 12
  • Seeded to Fellows $330K
  • Hours of Support Provided 900+
  • Contact Madeline Alexander

Launched in 2020, Assembling Voices is a year-long fellowship that supports activists, artists, scholars, workers, and others with ideas for public initiatives that bring people together to address community-identified issues in novel ways.

During the program year, fellows receive $25,000 in income, initiative, and travel support, as well as intellectual, administrative, and professional support from Incite Institute and our vast network.

Fellows are free to conceive and execute public programming as they envision it. Past initiatives have engaged communities in using light art to combat unsafety and stigma in New York, amplifying a civil rights battle in Nashville, and archiving home movies and ephemera in a South Texas community facing existential threats, and experimenting with cultural programming for and by unhoused people in San Diego.

Throughout the program year, fellows come together in New York City for training, collaboration, and networking. We develop custom training each year based on the cohort's desires and needs.

Boca Chica, Corazón Grande, an Assembling Voices project that developed into a larger initiative funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Assembling Voices acknowledges that biggest issues of our time aren’t just technical—they’re social. Ideas crafted entirely within the walls of universities risk being detached from the lives of the worlds they might transform. Outside those walls, organizers, artists, community leaders, and workers directly engage these same issues. Through this program, fellow brings both worlds together through a process of assembly, wherein people gather to more effectively transform themselves, their communities, and the world.

Program alumni have partnered with Incite to raise an additional $700K in combined funds from organizations including the National Endowment for the Humanities and Ford Foundation to continue to develop their initiatives.

Become an Assembling Voices fellow

Have an idea for an initiative that brings your commmunity together to address an issue with a novel approach? Incite is currently searching for its next cohort of Assembling Voices fellows, and we'd love to hear you.

Application Timeline

Click to apply

PDF version of the application form (for reference only).

Note that applications must be submitted through Google Forms.

Have an idea for a project outside the United States? Check out our Global Change Program.

As a 2024–2025 Assembling Voices fellow, Public artist and spatial justice designer Immanuel Oni has worked with Brownsville youth to reclaim these sites through public art activations. His initiative, Beyond Memorial, facilitates dialogue now with multiple community groups across the city to reclaim various sites of loss.

FAQ

    • Income support ($15,000)
    • Initiative support ($5,000)
    • Travel to/from NYC ($5,000)
    • Intellectual support from Incite staff
    • Access to event and work space
    • Administrative and logistical support
    • Professional development and capacity building workshops and networking opportunities

  • The Assembling Voices selection committee at Incite is particularly interested in proposals that:

    1. Are innovative in their design and presentation, such as those that mix interactive modes and activities;
    2. Address community-identified and community-specific needs, and;
    3. Are potentially sustainable beyond the term of the Fellowship.

  • This program is for U.S.-based artists, writers, scholars, journalists, activists, workers, organizers, performers, and others. Both collectives and individuals have had successful applications.

    To participate, we do not require a minimum educational attainment or a minimum number of years of experience

    If you have questions about eligibility based on your visa or immigration status, please contact us.

Incubated Projects

  • go to A Time Before Kale
    A Time Before Kale
    Exploring and documenting the history of Black neighborhoods. Part of Assembling Voices
  • go to Abolish ACS Fashion Show
    Abolish ACS Fashion Show
    Hosting an event series to support political education, organizing, and mutual aid among those most impacted by the New York City Administration for Children’s Services. Part of Assembling Voices
  • go to Arts Equity Nashville
    Arts Equity Nashville
    Amplifying the fight for equitable arts funding in Nashville with community-driven media and survey work. Part of Assembling Voices
  • go to Beyond Memorial
    Beyond Memorial
    Reclaiming these sites of memorial through publicly-engaged light art. Part of Assembling Voices
  • go to Boca Chica, Corazón Grande
    Boca Chica, Corazón Grande
    Against environmental and economic threats, documenting the history and geography of Boca Chica Beach through the eyes and memories of its community members. Part of Assembling Voices
  • go to Documenting as Resistance
    Documenting as Resistance
    Resisting displacement in America's most diverse neighborhood through socially-engaged public art. Part of Assembling Voices
  • go to Embodied Earth
    Embodied Earth
    Breaking through climate knowledge silos with collaborative, interactive public performances driven by research. Part of Assembling Voices
  • go to Hey Neighbor
    Hey Neighbor
    Connecting communities from all five boroughs of New York City around storytelling and portrait photography. Part of Assembling Voices
  • go to Sojourners for Justice Press
    Sojourners for Justice Press
    Connecting emerging and established Black publishers with alternative techniques, networks, and knowledge production—as well as each other. Part of Assembling Voices
  • go to Speaking into Silences
    Speaking into Silences
    Hosting mass-listening events across Puerto Rico focusing on surviving simultaneous, stratified disasters. Part of Assembling Voices
  • go to Street Seen
    Street Seen
    Creating cultural programming for and by unhoused people in San Diego. Part of Assembling Voices
  • go to The History and Hopes of Altgeld Gardens
    The History and Hopes of Altgeld Gardens
    Documenting Chicago's Altgeld Gardens without documentary interviews, aerial photography, and portraiture. Part of Assembling Voices

Related opportunities

  • go to Don Quixote Award
    Don Quixote Award
    Supporting idealistic, romantic, creative, impractical, adventurous projects born of teachers’ passions with awards up to $5,000. In Partnership with Academy for Teachers
  • go to Global Change Program
    Global Change Program
    Supporting leaders around the world who engage communities to address some of the most pressing issues of our time. Funded by Incite Institute
  • go to Hard Questions Grant
    Hard Questions Grant
    Up to $75,000 for research that tackles hard questions with innovative approaches too risky for traditional funding mechanisms. Funded by Incite Institute
  • go to Incite Institute Dissertation Fellowship
    Incite Institute Dissertation Fellowship
    $6,000 grants for Columbia Arts & Sciences PhD students. Funded by Incite Institute